by Betsy Byars
Pap-pap looked over at Simon. His eyes, blue as a baby’s, began to fill with tears. “You got no papa?”
“I have one but he’s gone.”
Pap-pap pulled out his handkerchief. It was old and faded because it was used all the time. “Your papa left home?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“He comes to visit?”
“No.”
“He writes?”
“We got one letter.”
“One letter,” Pap-pap said sadly. He shook his head. Tears spilled onto his wrinkled cheeks. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose.
“He cries a lot,” Tony explained to Simon.
Simon nodded. He looked from Tony to the weeping Pap-pap. Simon had not seen his mother cry when his father left. He himself had not cried. And here, across the table, from an old man he had never seen before, were tears for his father. He felt the first stirring of tears in his own eyes.
“Sometimes he cries just because the moon’s full, you know, because it’s beautiful,” Tony explained, as he chewed. “And sometimes he cries because he sees a picture that reminds him of home, and sometimes—well, he just cries all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Simon nodded again.
“That’s not true,” Pap-pap said. “It means something.” He peered at them over his handkerchief. “It means I get so full I spill over.” He made a gesture with his handkerchief as if it were water pouring over a dam. Then he wiped his cheeks again and, sniffling, began to eat.
Simon ducked his head, cut a piece of ravioli in half with his fork and put it in his mouth. The tears in his own eyes, the tightening of his throat made him unable to swallow, but there was something in the soft warm food, the weeping sympathetic man across the table that would make him feel sentimental every time he ate ravioli. Even in the school cafeteria, where ravioli came straight from a can, he would feel tears in his eyes when he ate.
Now Simon got up and went back into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator. His mother’s taste ran to yogurt and natural foods and fresh vegetables and bran muffins. He selected a cup of yogurt and ate it slowly with a spoon, feeling nothing at all.
Then he went back into the living room, sat in his same seat, and turned his thoughts to Cybil Ackerman.
At Cybil Ackerman’s House
Cybil Ackerman was practicing the piano. This was so that she could play trumpet in the band when she got to junior high. It was a deal she had made with her father. She was playing intently, eyes darting from the music to her hands. There was a carrot in her mouth. The doorbell rang.
“Cybil, get the door, please,” Mrs. Ackerman called.
Cybil removed the carrot from her mouth and stuck it in ajar of peanut butter beside her music. “I’m practicing,” she called back.
“Cynthia?”
“I’m studying.”
“Clara?”
“I’m in the bathroom.”
There was a rule in the Ackerman house that whoever was least busy had to answer the door and the phone. Mrs. Ackerman made the decision. “Cybil.”
“Oh, all right.” Cybil got up. “But I was just about to get that part.”
She dipped her carrot into the peanut butter as she went to the door. She saw through the screen that Tony Angotti was standing on the porch. His hands were in his pockets. A slight smile of anticipation was on his face.
“Who is it?” Clara and Cynthia both called.
“Nobody!” Cybil called back.
Tony Angotti shifted.
“What do you want?” Cybil asked. She took a bite of peanut-butter-covered carrot. , “Nothing. I was just passing by, and I figured I’d find out what you said about Simon. I don’t want to know, but he—well, you know how he is—he—”
“I didn’t say anything about Simon.” Crunch, crunch. “I like Simon.”
“Well, sure, but after Harriet told you he said you had Popsicle legs—”
“I do have Popsicle legs.”
“No.” The conversation was not going as Tony had anticipated. “I mean Harriet said you said something bad about Simon and maybe”—he gave an improbable laugh—“about me.”
“Oh, I said you were juvenile.”
“What?” He leaned forward as if he had been struck a light blow on the back of the neck.
“Juvenile,” she repeated.
“Me juvenile? Or Simon?”
“You.”
“Who’s at the door, Cybil?” Mrs. Ackerman called.
“Nobody.”
“Then get back to your practicing.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do!”
Tony said, “But why would you say that about me?” He was genuinely puzzled. “Simon’s the one who acts like he’s still in kindergarten. If I told you some of the stupid stuff he does, you wouldn’t believe me. One time he—”
“I got to go.”
“Wait a minute, Cybil, give me a chance. Just let me tell you one stupid thing that Simon Newton did, just one thing, and then you can decide which of us is juvenile.”
Cybil sighed, stuck her carrot in the peanut butter jar and waited.
“Okay, Simon was going to this funeral, see. His uncle died while he was visiting his grandmother and he didn’t have any dark shoes. And so his grandmother told him that his cousin Bennie’s shoes were magic shoes, and that if he wore them something good would happen. And so, believe it or not, he puts on the magic shoes and limps off to the funeral. They were two sizes too little, they were like tiny little men’s shoes and—”
Clara stuck her head around the door to see who was on the porch. “Mom,” she called, “Cybil’s talking to a boy! And if she can talk to a boy before she finishes practicing, then I can talk to Tommy before I finish studying. Tommy’s been sitting in the garage for fifteen minutes and—”
“Girls!” Mrs. Ackerman warned.
“I was not talking to a boy,” Cybil explained. “I was talking to Tony Angotti!”
As Cybil turned away and shut the door on him and his unfinished story, Tony Angotti could see that she was grinning at her sister and that her eyes were crossed.
In the Bushes
Simon Newton heard this conversation from the bushes where he happened to be hiding.
That night, after supper, he had decided to walk over to Cybil’s house. He would just walk up the sidewalk slowly, perhaps pretending to have lost something, and then when Cybil came out of the house he would tell her that it was Tony, not he, who had thought up the unfortunate similarity between her legs and Popsicle sticks. “I like straight legs,” he would tell her.
He would then go on to say that he was glad she was going to be Ms. Indigestion. This was true. Now that he had had a chance to realistically imagine himself in costume, his peanut butter sign and his one line, “I am rich in protein and blah—blah—blah—” did seem like a reprieve from public humiliation.
He was going over this in his mind, practicing it, when he turned the corner and saw Cybil’s house.
Simon had walked past Cybil’s house many times since that Arbor Day when he fell in love with her, and he never tired of doing so. Cybil had four sisters—all had red curly hair and looked alike, and so he had the pleasure when the youngest—Clarice —came running out, of seeing what Cybil had looked like in first grade. And when the oldest—Cynthia—came out, of seeing what Cybil would look like in high school.
Tonight, for the first time, when he looked at Cybil’s house, he got a nasty shock. Tony Angotti was standing on the porch. Tony Angotti was ringing the bell and straightening his jacket. Tony Angotti was smirking.
Keeping low, Simon had made his way behind the hedge, up to the shrubbery, and behind the bushes to the side of the porch. He had been here before too. Once he had sneaked up to look in the window so he could see what Cybil’s living room looked like, and at that exact moment Mrs. Ackerman had come out to cut some oleanders for a party she was having. Simon had crouched there, head against his knees, heart throbbing, swe
at running down his legs, while Mrs. Ackerman snipped blossoms around his head with a pair of shears.
This time he crouched in place just in time to hear Cybil ask, “What do you want?” and to hear the crunch of her carrot. And now, only minutes later, with every word of the conversation between Cybil and Tony burning in his brain, he watched through the leaves as Tony Angotti made his way to the sidewalk.
Simon was stunned by what he had heard. “Simon’s the one who acts like he’s still in kindergarten ... Just let me tell you one stupid thing that Simon Newton did ... Simon was going to this funeral, see ...”
A funny lie—that was how he had thought of Tony’s attributing the tub of blubber and sack of potatoes comment to him—a funny lie was one thing. He had survived dozens of those over the years. What he had just heard was character assassination. He could sue.
Simon watched with slitted eyes as Tony paused at the edge of the street. Simon was breathing through his mouth, the way he did when the pollen was bad.
Tony lifted his head as the opening notes of “Under the Golden Eagle” floated through the window. He scratched his head, a sure sign of thought. He adjusted his jacket. He turned his face toward the window as alert as a listening bird.
Tony Angotti was having a hard time believing that Cybil had called him a juvenile. Him, Tony Angotti, who looked like Donny Osmond! He paused, head turned to the music, trying to find an answer.
Tony’s head shifted with another thought. Tony could not keep his head still when he was thinking. Sometimes during a science test, his head would snap up as quickly as if he had a sudden toothache.
Cybil Ackerman was trying to make him jealous by pretending to like Simon Newton who, everyone knew, really was juvenile! That was it! At this very moment, Tony thought, she was probably watching him through the window.
He turned. With studied nonchalance he made his way to the hedge. Quickly, head low, he ducked behind the hedge and walked in a crouch to the bushes. Holding his hands over his face to protect it from scratches, he squirmed through the bushes to a place beneath the window. Cautiously he lifted his head.
Simon watched all this with an awful fascination. Seeing Tony come closer and closer, knowing a facedown here in the bushes was inevitable, he still made no effort to get away or hide. He waited, his eyes bright with anger.
Tony straightened and peered into the window. His face reflected his disappointment. His mouth hung open.
He had somehow expected to see Cybil Ackerman standing behind the curtain, peering out, trying to see him as he walked away. That was what Annette did when Rickie Wurts left. Instead here she was, playing the piano with a carrot stuck in her mouth.
It was hard for/Tony to believe. Cybil Ackerman was not even pretty. Her legs really were like Popsicle sticks.
And yet here she was treating him, Tony Angotti, the image of Donny Osmond, as if he were an ordinary person. No, worse—as if he were nothing. He was glad no one was around to see this humiliation.
“Cybil!”
One of Cybil’s sisters rushed into the living room. Cybil’s hands stopped playing, hovered over the keys.
“Quick, play the Wedding March while Clara goes down the steps to meet Tommy. Hurry, she’s leaving.” ,
“I don’t know the music.”
“Fake it!”
Cybil’s hands twitched, hesitated, then struck.
Dum da-da-da. Dum da-da-de. Dum da-da-daaaaaaaaa-da-da dadadadada-deeeeeee.
“Cybil! Cynthia! That’s not funny!” Clara yelled. She spun around on the porch and glared back at the open window.
Tony Angotti crouched so quickly his knees popped. He bowed like a Muslim.
Clara waited, eyes on the window, until she was sure Cybil was through with the Wedding March. Then, as the labored strains of “Under the Golden Eagle” floated through the window again, she went down the steps to where Tommy was waiting.
“Excuse my sisters,” she said, “they think they’re soooooo funny.”
Tony Angotti lifted his head. He brushed dirt from his brow. He pulled his T-shirt from his stomach where it had stuck with his sweat. He was now doubly grateful that no one could see him here on his knees.
It was then that he turned his head and saw Simon Newton.
The Spies and the Lies
“I didn’t know you went around hiding in the bushes, spying on your friends,” Tony Angotti said as soon as they were safely on the sidewalk. After that one long, hard moment in the oleanders when their eyes met and locked, they had not glanced at each other. They were now walking, eyes down, toward Simon’s house.
“May I point out,” Simon said, “that you were in the same bushes?”
They kept walking. Each was torn by the feeling that the other’s crime was worse, and yet unable to put that proof into words.
“That don’t count,” Tony said. “I had a reason.”
“Maybe I had a reason too.”
There was a silence, awkward and long, while each searched for another accusation. Then Simon brushed his hair from his forehead and said with a faint smile, “Anyway, did you find out what Cybil said about you?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“No,” he lied, “I got there right after that.”
“You didn’t hear what she said?”
“No.”
Tony glanced at Simon, quickly, then away. “Well, she didn’t say anything about me, pal. She said you were juvenile.”
“What?”
“You heard me—juvenile.” Tony would have liked to have spelled the word for emphasis, but he wasn’t sure if it started with aj or g.
“Oh.”
Tony sighed, partly from relief, partly from being on safe territory—lying. “I tried to tell her you weren’t, but she wouldn’t listen. Right in the middle of a long story about you—I was really pouring it on—she just went back in the house.”
“What story were you telling?”
“About the time you broke your arm,” he said swiftly, happy he came from a family where lying was an inborn gift. “And that when they set it you didn’t take any ether and—”
“I never broke my arm.”
“Oh, I thought you did. Well, anyway, she wouldn’t listen. She went in the house and started playing the piano. You heard that?”
Simon nodded. “Well, I got to go in.”
“Sure.”
Their eyes met again, a questioning look, but both of them turned away before anything was revealed. Tony ‘kept watching Simon as Simon walked up the steps. Then he shrugged. “Anh!” He made the motion of pushing Simon and the whole stupid business away as he turned to go home.
“Did you and Tony have a fight?” Simon’s mother asked as he came in the door.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because you always have that look on your face when you have a fight.”
“I don’t have any ‘look’ on my face.”
“Yes, you do. Your face gets red and—”
“Maybe I’ve been running. Maybe I’ve been in the sun.” He resented the fact that his emotions showed on his face. “Just leave me alone.”
He was aware that his mother was watching him closely. Ever since his father left, she had been doing this. How are you? How do you feel? Is there anything wrong? Talk to me. It was as if she never wanted to be taken by surprise again.
“I’m not going to run away and live in a forest, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he had said once in exasperation. “May I remind you of my allergies and my magnetic ability to attract wasps?”
“I know you’re not going to run away,” she’d said, but the fact that he’d put the thought into words only seemed to make her worry more.
“Simon—”
“Oh, leave me alone,” he said again. He sometimes had the feeling that when he died, if people would just leave him alone, he could come back to life.
She sighed and smiled. “Then tell me what isn’t wrong, tell me something, anything.”
“Tell me something that happened at school today,” she suggested.
He looked at her. “And I can go to my room?”
“Yes, if it’s about you. Don’t tell me about somebody throwing up in the cafeteria.”
“That happened yesterday. Well, let’s see. Oh, here’s the big news of today. We are having a nutrition play. This is because Miss McFawn used to teach first grade where they did nothing but put on plays. I have been selected for a lesser role—the peanut butter—but I shall try to bring dignity and character to the part. Can I go?”
“What’s Tony?”
His face did not change expression. “Dill pickle.”
“Go on.”
“Well, that’s basically it. One of the green beans—Laura Goode—hit me because I laughed when Tony said she actually resembled a green bean from the side.”
“Aw.”
“Hard, Mom. Look.” He found a small bruise above his elbow and showed it to her. “And then I was falsely accused of calling two other girls sacks of potatoes and one girl a tub of blubber, which, incidentally, she does resemble. The tub of blubber did not hit me, fortunately, or I would be in the hospital.”
He looked at her, keeping his face bright and cheerful so she would know he was fine and leave him alone. “Is that enough?”
“Yes.”
“Can I go now?”
“Simon, you are not a prisoner. I just like for you to tell me things.”
As he left the room she called after him. “Simon.”
“What?”
“Don’t let Tony take advantage of you.”
He stopped in place. He sighed with irritation. “That is not the problem.”
“What is the problem then?”
His shoulders sagged. With his back to her he said, “Everything is just so complicated.”
